Cimmerian: A Novel of the Holocaust by Ronald Watkins

restless and uncertain. Peter saw a glimmer of hope in the eyes of many of the trustees who had lasted all this time in hell. Everyone found it unsettling. It was as if the prisoners had risen in open revolt.
    His mother wrote that his father's Volksstrum unit had been activated. Fortunately he was assigned duty not far from home and was able to be with her most nights.
    In Peter’s fears of madness he increasingly dwelt on Eva. In that place her sympathies took on a disproportionate significance. In every part of his waking hours when he could he thought of her. When the day was especially terrible, and nearly all of each day was, he thought of her with passionate intensity. It seemed to him that if somehow he could find a way to spare her, if he could manage this single act of charity, all the rest of his doing would be undone.
    Peter did not speak to her of this or of what he thought as he went about his duty. It would be a surprise. And she would be grateful. She would find a quiet place to wait these final weeks until the war at long last ended and then he would join her, her savior. .
    He had never had a girlfriend, though he was nineteen. Conditions of the war and of his service had denied him the usual contacts a young man had with girls. The wave of emotion he experienced for Eva was overwhelming to him. Perhaps if there had been other sweethearts ... but there had been none.
    The first plan that came to him was through Max. They went to the brothel together most nights now. He pulled him into a quiet corner where their conversation was masked by the music. “Tell me about your business with Sol,” he asked.
    Max looked around quickly to see if anyone could overhear them. “What? You want to get us hung? You never cared about it before. Don’t tell me you want your cut now!”
    “No, it is not that. But tell me what you do with Sol.”
    Max shrugged. “All the men do it with someone or other. I'm just lucky to have access to the old Jew. I give him the gold. I use another source for the diamonds. The old yid melts the gold down for me and keeps a little for his trouble. I send the gold out in a certain way.”
    ''How much are you making?”
    “Say--what is this? What are you after?”
    “I want to buy someone out.”
    “So that’s it!” Max slapped his thigh and bellowed. “It's that Jewess whore turned your head!” He laughed heartily. When the mirth was gone he said: “Forget her. You cannot buy her out.
    “Why not? Others are bought out all the time. You see it the same as I do.”
    “Yes, but never anyone who does what she does. And that has all ended anyway. You must have noticed.” This was true. Since before Christmas no one had left the KZ. “Tell me this,” Max said, “Where do the goldsmiths get the gold?”
    “You know.”
    “That's right. And so do they. From the bloody buckets of teeth. You think anyone will let one of those in that hut out to say that? They are all going to die. Every one of them. And the girl too. The whole KZ before this is over, if Hoffmann has half a brain. Get it over with, that will settle your blood.”
    Max was right about buying Eva out. Peter realized with a sinking heart that it should have been obvious to him. He had been very foolish to refuse the gold earlier. If he had taken his fair share from the beginning there would have been enough to get her out before, but not now. Max was right about that. Max was always right.
    Everything was breaking down throughout Germany. Trains with dead cargo were increasingly common. The cars had been shunted aside and delayed because of the bombings, and those in the open cattle cars froze to death.
    Peter considered other ways to save the girl. Perhaps, he thought, he could have her assigned to duty off the KZ. Then he could arrange to be her guard and oversee her escape.
    But almost no one worked beyond the fences any longer. And to where would she flee? Even now, from time to time, prisoners escaped, usually